Loss
by meowcubed3
Summary: What have you ever lost? What have you ever given up?


Loss

She was a dead woman, a ghost. She still breathed, still walked, and still talked, but she was dead on the inside. Tatiana was nothing but an empty shell. She had one purpose. To destroy evil, which she had done for so long that she barely remembered anything before that.

Her feet ached from days of trudging along the sides of roads. Tatiana wished she could have taken a bus, but she had no money. Only a basic idea of where she was headed kept her going. Supposedly, there was a forest in upstate Maine with a demon living in it. She hoped that this monster would have treasure, though she doubted it. The last one hadn't had anything. That was three months ago. Now Tatiana was broke, hungry and in desperate need of a shower.

The sword on her back seemed to get heavier with each step, constantly reminding her of her burden. Tatiana didn't know how long she had carried that sword, only that neither she nor it had aged a day since she had took up the task to destroy evil. She did not regret her decision, nor was glad that she chose it, but someone had to do it. She had been guided to the sword, rusted and battered, buried behind her house in the barbaric mountains of what people now call Eastern Europe, but what she called home, by a feeling she could not explain, but had felt many times since. It was that instinct, that innate part of her that caused her to take up this endless task to fight evil. And that had been so long ago, when kings fought their petty wars, when the world was flat and you could fall off the edge into nothingness. Still that feeling was with her, taking her to her next destination, to fight the next monster.

She stopped for a moment to pull out a map. What was the place she was going to? She traced her finger up the map before it landed on a little dot. A town called Morpheus. She wondered if the name had any significance. Morpheus was the ancient Greek god of sleep and dreams. Maybe it was important, but many small towns have strange names.

What was more concerning was what kind of creature was living the woods of Morpheus. She thought about wood-dwelling monsters as she put the map away and started walking again. Spirits of trees and streams had been known to attack people who harmed their homes, as did many sprites and faeries. Tatiana didn't believe that it was one of these, since the fey and the nature spirits might be mischievous, but they weren't truly malevolent. A fire dragon might be it, one of the huge, scaly brutes that preferred forested mountains, but there was no evidence of fire damage. She ran through all of the creatures she had ever fought, but none of them fitted the killing pattern. How the victims were killed was what made Tatiana uneasy about this monster.

The murders had been going on for centuries, and all the victims had been killed the same way. The bodies had been torn apart, ripped to shreds. Some of the limbs had never been recovered. Some people had simply never been found. That was not the worst of it. The faces of the victims were always left perfectly intact. And the victims always had a contented smile on their cold, dead faces. Tatiana heard about the latest rash of killings, a bunch of college kids, around a week ago on a TV in a gas station. As soon as she had seen the news report she knew that Morpheus was where she had to go next.

She stopped walking. A wooden sign, covered in faded and peeling paint welcomed her into the town of Morpheus. The words _population: 1,368_ were crossed out, and scrawled underneath was _population: 729._ The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, confirming what she already knew. There was a monster here.

She strolled down Main Street, peering into shop windows. Most of them were deserted, with going out of business signs in them. The brick facades of many of the buildings were crumbling down, and graffiti adorned a few of the cement walls. Plastic bags and paper flyers floated about, and the buildings stared out menacingly with vacant windows. A ghost girl in a ghost town, thought Tatiana with a wry smile. Perfect.

As she rounded the only corner, she spotted the only open stores. A gas station, an all-night convenience store and another one with a sign that announced _The Morpheus Monster_ in neon lights. Tatiana went into _The Morpheus Monster_. A balding, pudgy man sat behind the counter reading a magazine. His eyes flicked up when Tatiana entered.

"What'cha looking for?" he asked.

Tatiana surveyed the crammed room. Brochures lined the walls, along with a few books with titles like, "_The Morpheus Mystery_" and "_The Monster of Morpheus: Real or Fake?_" A few blurry photos of trees, bushes and deer hung on the wall, claiming to be the Monster of Morpheus. She shifted her position so that the man couldn't see the sword on her back.

"I plan to go hiking tomorrow; maybe look for the Morpheus Monster." said Tatiana "Do you have any maps I could use?"

"Sure thing." grinned the man. He shuffled around underneath the counter. "We get a lot of you college kids up here, out hunting for the Morpheus Monster. Ah, here it is!" he said while waving a map about triumphantly. "I don't recommend going out there alone though. Monster or not, there is something dangerous out there."

"I'll be careful." Tatiana said. "I'm a little curious about the monster. Could you tell me anything about it?" The man rubbed his lips

"Hmm, well what exactly do you want to know?"

"Has anyone ever spotted the monster? Are there any stories about other strange things happening here?"

"Well, the Native Americans used to tell stories about a vengeful nature spirit, who killed anyone who trespassed on her territory." said the man. "I think that she was human once or at least according to the stories. Something happened to wipe out her entire family, maybe a raid from another tribe. Anyway, she went crazy with grief and killed everyone. Then she ran off into the forest and disappeared. The legend says that she's still out there, slowly becoming darker and stronger, and crazier. The first European settlers here heard the stories, but didn't believe them. Until the mutilated bodies started turning up, that is. They thought it might have been a wild animal, but the killings kept happening. Most of them decided to stick it out though, figuring the animal would get caught eventually. Then a survivor turned up. The man was Timothy Harding and he was the local schoolteacher. An educated man, very shy, but a hard worker. But when the townspeople found him in the woods he was stark raving mad. He kept mumbling about his sweetheart, who died a year earlier of a fever, and about something he called Morpheus. Most people assumed Harding was talking about the monster and started referring to it as the Morpheus Monster. Eventually the other settlements started tocall the town Morpheus as well. So here we are, named by a madman and for a Native American legend." He laughed. "And as for the sightings," the man gestured to the photographs around the room.

Tatiana nodded. A Native American woman gone mad with grief and a schoolteacher driven insane by what he had witnessed in the forest. That still didn't explain the strange method of killing the victims.

"Is there anyone I could talk to that has seen the Morpheus Monster?" She asked.

"Normally I would tell you to talk to Crazy Esther, but she died last spring."

"Crazy Esther?'

"Oh yes," Smiled the man sadly. "She used to tell the story of when her best friend, Isabel was killed by the Monster. They were playing near the woods when her friend heard someone calling her. Esther said she didn't hear anything, but followed her friend. She lost sight of Isabel until she reached a clearing. There was this shadowy figure standing holding Isabel in its arms. Esther hid behind some trees, watching. The thing carried Isabel away into the forest without making a sound. She said that Isabel had this happy smile on her face, as if she was glad to see it. She didn't get a very good look the figure, and she never saw its face. They found Isabel's body four days later, her limbs and torso torn apart, and her face smiling. Esther tried to find the clearing where the thing had taken Isabel, but never saw it again."

Tatiana scarcely dared to breathe. How she would have liked to question this Esther.

"Although," The man added as an afterthought. "Esther was absolutely insane. She believed that her dead husband Murray was still alive, and that her sons were George Washington, the pope, and the king of England. I wouldn't take anything she said seriously. Esther had always been a little strange, but the poor thing finally snapped when her husband Murray was killed by the monster. She wandered into the woods this spring and never came back."

Tatiana considered this before picking up the map and walking out the door with only a quiet "Thank you."

"Hey, Miss!" The man yelled after her. "You never told me your name!" But Tatiana was already gone, heading towards the forest.

The setting sun lit up the fiery colors of the trees, setting ablaze the thickets and brambles with oranges, yellows and reds. Many of the leaves had already fallen off, causing Tatiana's boots to make a crunching sound whenever she took a step.

Tatiana had removed the sword from its sheathe, grasping the leather grip with both of her hands. The sharpened metal gleamed in the light of dusk, daring anything to face it. Tatiana prowled, as noiselessly as she could while walking on a carpet of foliage, waiting for the monster to make an appearance. She waited, and she waited, and she waited.

When the sun finally sank behind the horizon, Tatiana leaned up against the trunk , closed her eyes and half hoped that monster would hurry up and find her, as well as wishing that it would never find her, and she could rest here forever. When the moon had risen high in the sky, Tatiana opened her eyes to look at the sliver of dim white light.

Tatiana stood there waiting, not thinking much of anything, like an eternal sentry. Then she heard the wind whisper through the trees, stirring the air and caressing her skin. The crisp autumn air had not bothered Tatiana until that moment, but that unearthly wind made her shiver. A niggling sensation crept up the base of her skull, making Tatiana woozy. A woman stepped out from the shadows, her moccasins not making a sound. Her long black hair blended into the darkness, so that Tatiana could not tell where the forest ended and the woman began. The woman's expression was serene and a hint of a smile curled at the corners of her lips. No wrinkles lined her face, yet her eyes bespoke centuries of life. Just as soon as Tatiana had taken in the woman's appearance, it began to change.

Her skin rippled, and formed new contours, new shapes. The woman grew taller, and her shoulders broadened. Tatiana raised her sword, pointing it at the thing. The woman's dark hair became shorter, curling back into her skull, lightening to brown shot through with gray. Her nose grew bigger, rounder. Her eyes turned from black to green- grey. When this horrifying display was over, the woman was Tatiana's father.

Tatiana froze unable to comprehend. The memory of her father's face had almost disappeared from mind over the years, yet the demon-woman had morphed into his exact replica, down to his bushy eyebrows and the scar under one of his eyes. The creature began to change again. Her hair grew long and turned blonde. She shrunk several inches and became plump in her arms and legs. Her eyes turned into a stormy blue, her fingers lengthened and her teeth yellowed. This time the monster had taken on the form of Tatiana's mother.

Finally, Tatiana realized why all the victims had died smiling, why the little girl Isabel had willing gone with her. The creature invaded your dreams, your memories, your thoughts, and twisted them around become what you wanted the most.

All of her rationality screamed at her to fight, or run away, but she couldn't tear herself away from the moving, breathing, beckoning image of her mother. Just when Tatiana thought that she could muster her defenses against the monster, she changed again. Her hair lengthened and darkened to a chestnut brown. Her eyes got rounder and bigger, and greener. Freckles popped up along her skin. Tatiana's heart broke.

It was her little sister. The sister Tatiana had not seen since the day Tatiana left her family to fulfill her calling. Her sister reached her arms, smiling. Her expression seemed to say, _I forgive you, it is going to be alright_.

"I still love you"

It was her sister's voice, the voice that Tatiana was sure that she would never hear again. Tatiana forgot everything but her sister, filled with an elation that she hadn't experienced in so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to be happy. She lowered her sword, stepping towards her sister's double. The tip of the sword dragged in the ground, weighing Tatiana down; reminding her she had a duty. She wanted to throw the sword away, along with guilt and the loneliness she had carried for so long. But she didn't

She summoned up all her willpower to point the sword at her little sister. Her arms wanted to disobey, to instead wrap themselves around the creature in front of her. The sword seemed to pull Tatiana towards the replica of her sister, guiding her to destroy it. The sharp blade stabbed through chest of the creature as easily as it would slide through water. The monster writhed in pain, letting out an earsplitting howl that deafened Tatiana. It shed its mask of Tatiana's sister, revealing its true form.

It did not resemble the surreal woman Tatiana had seen at first at all. The skin appeared as dry and as creased as leather. Its eyes were a pale milky color, bigger than one of Tatiana's fist and just as round. The creature shriveled to half of Tatiana's height, dangling on the point of the sword. Its limbs became skeletal and the skin a mottled grey. Long claws curved from the tips of its hands and its gaping mouth was full of broken and yellowed fangs.

Tatiana fell to her knees trembling. Everything she had ever lost came hurtling back to her. Though it would have led to her destruction, Tatiana wanted to believe, even for a moment that she could be with her family. Looking at the shriveled up shape shifter in its death throes Tatiana did something that she hadn't done since she left her home. She began to cry. Huge wet sobs wracked her body and she began to wail. She cried for her long lost family and home, she cried for all the people she couldn't save and all the people she could. She cried for all the monsters she had killed and she cried for their victims. She cried for the world that had changed so much since she was small, a world that she no longer recognized and that no longer believed in magic and stories. But most of all, she cried for herself.

**Author's Note**

**This is a short story that I wrote for a college course that I took this summer. Since I think it's pretty good, I decided to put it out here. I didn't get any feedback from the last short story I wrote, but I have high hopes for this one. I love reviews, and getting some would encourage me to publish more of my short stories. Thanks for reading this piece, and please review.**

**Ciao,**

**Meowcubed3**


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